CS Graduate Thesis Degrees

The Department of Computer Science offers two thesis graduate degrees: the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) and the Master of Science (M.S.) in Computer Science. An M.S. is normally completed as a part of the process of earning a Ph.D. Applicants interested in pursuing a computer science Ph.D. should apply directly to the Ph.D. program if they have either a baccalaureate degree or a master's degree. Thesis track students work directly with one or more faculty members who serve as research directors and mentors. Both the M.S. and the Ph.D. degrees require a combination of coursework and original research, as evidenced in a written thesis and a public oral defense of that thesis.

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CS Professional Degree

In addition, the Department of Computer Science offers the Master of Computer Science (MCS) degree, a non-thesis professional master's degree that lets a student take advanced coursework beyond the Bachelor's degree. The MCS degree requires 30 credit hours beyond the Bachelor's degree.

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CS Graduate Community and Activities

A rich variety of on-campus and off-campus cultural, social, intellectual, and athletic opportunities are available for Rice graduate students. Read more about these opportunities in our graduate student FAQs!

Resources

Not sure if Rice's CS graduate program is right for you? Read about our current students and alumni to learn more about the opportunities you'll discover with us.

CS Grad Student Stories

We love telling the stories of our students. Several of our recent features include:

Yifan â€śEvaâ€ť Li, a student in the masters of computer science (MCS) program at Rice University, is willing to take calculated risks to advance her career. â€śWhenÂ I was considering my choices for graduate school, Rice was known to have a great professional masters program for students who aim to find a good job.â€ťAll she knew about the university had been learned through websites and comments from Rice students and alumni in a China-based group chat. None of her friends were headed to Texas, but Li balanced the risk of the unknown against the promise of future results and accepted the Computer Science Departmentâ€™s admission offer.

Andrew Wells is a member of Lydia Kavrakiâ€™s research team and wonÂ NASA Fellowship as a first year student. He said, â€śI came to visit during recruiting weekend and I really liked the people I met. Lydiaâ€™s research interests in two apparently unrelated fieldsâ€”robotics and bioinformaticsâ€”appealed to me. I like learning for its own sake, not just because it can be useful, but I also suspect there is a lot of low-hanging fruit that can be discovered by someone with broader interests in more than one sub-field.â€ť

Shangyu Luo, a 5th year Computer Science Ph.D. student, recently won a best paper award at a prestigious conference. He said, â€śThe ICDE is one of the top conferences for databases and the acceptance rate is only about 18%, so getting in was an achievement. That moment we got to go on the stage and receive the Best Paper award was amazing. Many people wait for a moment like that, and it was very exciting! I practiced a lot for my presentation, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to tell people what our work was about. The more I realized other scientists valued our work, the more I felt driven to reengage with the research on a new level.â€ť

CS Grad Alumni Stories

Our graduate student alumni are breaking ground in amazing ways. Check out a few of their stories:

Computer science Ph.D. alumni Risa Myers chose Rice for her graduate student work because professor Chris Jermaineâ€™s research area aligned with her interests. â€śHe let me find my own data and pursue research in my particular area of interest (clinical outcomes) and helped me publish my work in both computer science and medical venues,â€ť she said. â€śIâ€™m fortunate to have found advisers and collaborators that have really helped me do what I set out to do. I came here to learn how to make sense out of biomedical data and that is what I was able to do.â€ť

When Niketan Pansare arrived in the United States, it was to work on his masters and he took two extremely challenging and highly-recommended courses, both taught by Professor Chris Jermaine. Near the end of the semester, Jermaine called Pansare into his office and asked if heâ€™d be interested in working on a PhD. Pansare said, â€śI had just gotten a dream job offer from Microsoft, and not even thought of PhD until then. He gave me a week to think about it.â€ť

Â Andreas Haeberlen, the Raj and Neera Singh Assistant Professor for computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, said Rice was one of his top grad school choices in 2003. â€śI was already in systems and wanted to work with one of the top people in the field,â€ť he said, â€śand that included Peter Druschel at Rice.â€ť About halfway through Haeberlenâ€™s PhD program, Druschel moved to Germany. Haeberlen said, â€śPeter got the offer [to be the founding director of the new Max Planck Institute for Software Systems] so I finished my PhD for Rice while working in Germany.â€ť Before leaving Houston, he had already taken four semesters of Chinese and developed an affinity for Texas barbecue, especially the brisket at Goode Co BBQ on Kirby Drive. â€śI went to Rice because of Peter,â€ť he said, â€śbut then I discovered the wonderful campus and the diversity of Houston.â€ť